


Cognitive Psurvival

by Jumpyrope



Category: Persona 5
Genre: sae doesn't really have any lines, shes just there, shrugs, this is just a little idea I had
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 08:16:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13566531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jumpyrope/pseuds/Jumpyrope
Summary: Sae Nijima exits the room. After the click of the door closing, there is silence. The world wavers, and two realities exist in one space.





	Cognitive Psurvival

**Author's Note:**

> Major spoilers for after the sixth palace! But I guess it's been long enough that everyone's seen the spoiler already so whatevs. But seriously tho if you've managed to not been spoiled yet and are looking at the stuff in the fandom, then shit man kudos to you! Anyway whatever, enjoy.

Sae Nijima exits the room. After the click of the door closing, there is silence. The world wavers, and two realities exist in one space. 

Akira Kurusu, Phantom Thief and trickster, sits and waits anxiously. His eyes stay glued to the door, hoping that the plan will work and he won't see it open. 

Akira Kurusu, Phantom Thief and captive, relaxes after Sae leaves the room. He hurts all over, and he feels so tired. He hopes that his friends got away safely. 

The door opens, and Akira is surprised to see a familiar face come in with a guard. He notices the camera in the corner turn off, and then it happens so fast. Before he can even move his mouth to ask what is going on, Akechi takes the gun out of the guard's holster and shoots the man without hesitation. Akira's eyes widen, and Akechi turns to look at him. The detective's face is blank yet menacing. He has his chin tilted up slightly to look down on the prisoner. Akira had never seen such a look of disdain on the Akechi's face before. It hurts a bit, seeing someone he thought to be a friend looking at him like that. He wants to tell him to stop, he wants to demand answers, but his mouth seems as if it were sealed shut. Akechi's eyes don't show any emotion. 

"It's thanks to you that this was all made possible, so thanks." He says in a voice that sounds so distant from his pleasant tone he used to have. 

Akira's eyes widen further as he looks down the barrel of the still steaming gun. His eyes then follow the natural line the gun makes with Akechi's arm. Their gazes meet, and the traitor's red eyes almost sparkle. _Oh god,_ Akira thinks despairingly, _I'm about to die._

Akechi's lips spread into a vile grin. 

"Case closed," he says with that same grin, mouth forming the words as if it felt good to say them, "so this is where your 'justice' ends." Akira feels his heart pounding in every part of his body, hears nothing but the sound of his blood pumping in his ears. He is too dehydrated to produce tears, which he is at least thankful for that. He doesn't want to give Akechi the satisfaction. 

It's strangely anticlimactic when Akechi pulls the trigger and fires directly into Akira's forehead. Akira hears the gun go off distantly, as if it were muffled by something more than the silencer on it. He stays alive for a moment longer than he thought it would be possible for someone to be alive after getting shot in the head, but it really lasts for only a mere second. He doesn't feel his head crash against the table, doesn't feel the tip of the gun gently poke the top of his head, and doesn't feel his hand being carefully raised and moved to curl loosely around the gun. Akechi leaves the room. 

In the same seat at the same time, Akira crosses his legs under the table and feels like the plan had worked. There isn't a way to be positive, but after the door to the underground interrogation room doesn't reopen for 20 minutes after Sae leaves, Akira feels like he was successful. A self satisfied grin crosses his face, and he waits for Sae's return to get him out. 

When the door opens carefully a moment later, Akira feels his heart stop. Then Sae Nijima enters the room and the prisoner relaxes when he sees her and not his young assassin. Truthfully though, he masochistically wishes he could have seen what happened in the cognitive version of the room. Wishes he could have seen what Akechi looked and acted like while killing him. He feels like their relationship got stronger, somehow. It's disconcerting. 

His escape from the underground chamber is inelegant as he has to lean on Sae to walk without falling over, but he is glad to be stumbling down a hallway instead of dead in that scary little room. 

In the metaverse, the cognitive Akira and guard fade out of existence, and the people sent to clean the room after Akechi finished find nothing in the real world either. They were ordered to not ask questions and just get the room cleaned. They do just that, mopping up blood from when the prisoner was being kicked around, taking the needles laying carelessly on the floor, and giving the whole room a good once-over to (kinda) sterilize it. They report back that the job is done, and go about business as usual. 

Akechi presses a gun to one of the janitor's heads. The man tells him honestly that there was nothing strange in the room. The second janitor says the same thing. Two lives are spared, and their selves in the real world are blissfully unaware of the man in the black mask that very nearly ended their lives.

**Author's Note:**

> I just got to thinking about cognitive Akira and how he took the bullet. Like, Sae didn't know about the plan so cognitive Akira couldn't know about the plan. And I wondered too, can cognitions have thoughts? This was birthed


End file.
